Join the Labour Party and save your country!

narbs

Rick Chasey wrote:

I imagine in swing seats it's partly mutual - I've heard of Labour MPs on the door saying vote for me in spite of Corbyn...

Ha, I can certainly think of a few who'll be praying he doesn't come anywhere near their constituency!

bompington

meursault wrote:

very low workers consciousness that won't go to the polls and vote for a party that represents them

Ah, the classic communist fallacy that "the workers" are a single lump, combined with the hubris of thinking that just because you claim to speak for "the workers", you do.

kingstongraham

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

So the consensus on the moderate left is this election is an inconvenience to Corbyn's plan to reform the Labour party so it will permanently be more left wing.

He's desperately holding out till September where they will have the chance to chance the voting weights to elect candidates, essentially ensuring there will always be a hard left candidate.

Hence his desire to change the goal posts and measure his success against Ed Milliband's performance, rather than leaving after being humiliated at the voting booths.

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

It's not some principle of where on the left Labour is, but an ideological reaction against rampant capitalism. Where capitalism isn't working, and the list is very long, you need an alternative.

The only voting booths he's stood in so far, have been majority victories, yet the right wing keep pushing the unelectable tag.

We'll see.

And when we have seen, will you accept it, or will it then be the fault of the media for portraying him unfairly?

Philip Collins in The Times this morning is worth a read. Labour wins when it runs on a theme of modernisation. Blair won three times by more than ten seats - which Labour has only done five times in 26 elections since universal suffrage.

"This manifesto is Labour marching backwards into battle. It is not a suicide note. It is a request to be allowed to go to Dignitas."

mrfpb

meursault wrote:

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

Rick Chasey wrote:

There's quite a big ideological difference between Blairism and Toryism in any form, but I sense you don't want that debate...

I think this article demolishes the Blair Gov't=Tory Gov't or even Tory Lite.

http://labourlist.org/2017/05/andrew-gwynne-for-the-many-not-the-few-20-years-on-from-the-1997-election/

I'd say around 1/5 of the achieivements were carry overs from the Major gov't, but it was a radical, socially reforming agenda, especially at the beginning (pre-crash and pre-Iraq). Blair led a successful coalition of the left to power (Brown, Prescott, Cook, Dewar and others) The hard left refused to sign up and now hate him for his success.

Corbyn "leads" a splinter group within the party, but in truth he is their puppet. They encouraged him to stay on after the the vote of no confidence, they will try the same after the GE. In the face of anther no confidence vote in all likelihood.

narbs

mrfpb wrote:

meursault wrote:

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

Rick Chasey wrote:

There's quite a big ideological difference between Blairism and Toryism in any form, but I sense you don't want that debate...

I think this article demolishes the Blair Gov't=Tory Gov't or even Tory Lite.

http://labourlist.org/2017/05/andrew-gwynne-for-the-many-not-the-few-20-years-on-from-the-1997-election/

I'd say around 1/5 of the achieivements were carry overs from the Major gov't, but it was a radical, socially reforming agenda, especially at the beginning (pre-crash and pre-Iraq). Blair led a successful coalition of the left to power (Brown, Prescott, Cook, Dewar and others) The hard left refused to sign up and now hate him for his success.

Corbyn "leads" a splinter group within the party, but in truth he is their puppet. They encouraged him to stay on after the the vote of no confidence, they will try the same after the GE. In the face of anther no confidence vote in all likelihood.

And yet, if you talk to Corbynistas, none of those things happened....

mrfpb

narbs wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

meursault wrote:

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

Rick Chasey wrote:

There's quite a big ideological difference between Blairism and Toryism in any form, but I sense you don't want that debate...

I think this article demolishes the Blair Gov't=Tory Gov't or even Tory Lite.

http://labourlist.org/2017/05/andrew-gwynne-for-the-many-not-the-few-20-years-on-from-the-1997-election/

I'd say around 1/5 of the achieivements were carry overs from the Major gov't, but it was a radical, socially reforming agenda, especially at the beginning (pre-crash and pre-Iraq). Blair led a successful coalition of the left to power (Brown, Prescott, Cook, Dewar and others) The hard left refused to sign up and now hate him for his success.

Corbyn "leads" a splinter group within the party, but in truth he is their puppet. They encouraged him to stay on after the the vote of no confidence, they will try the same after the GE. In the face of anther no confidence vote in all likelihood.

And yet, if you talk to Corbynistas, none of those things happened....

He even had a seat for Diane Abbott until she double faulted on her high principles and flounced out.

meursault

Rick Chasey wrote:

OK.

There's quite a big ideological difference between Blairism and Toryism in any form, but I sense you don't want that debate...

And is capitalism actually failing? Or is it mismanagement?

I don't mind the debate, but to what end? The LP moved to the right under Blair. His spin doctors saw the opportunity of the Americanisation of election politics and took it on 'successfully'. The LP crossed the rubicon, and discarded socialist ideologies. Particularly clause 4.

As I've said before, I canvassed for a Militant council election, and LP support on the doors did not see what has happening. Just thought that once in power, Labour would return to working class ideals.

Capitalism is a rotting corpse, that needs replacing. Once people open their eyes minds, this should be carried out.

FocusZing

I've got ten squids on Corbyn doing Strictly. Perfect timing.

meursault

bompington wrote:

meursault wrote:

very low workers consciousness that won't go to the polls and vote for a party that represents them

Ah, the classic communist fallacy that "the workers" are a single lump, combined with the hubris of thinking that just because you claim to speak for "the workers", you do.

The working class contains a whole strata, I have never said they are one lump. That doesn't change my view, that working class consciousness is lagging behind the objective situation.

meursault

KingstonGraham wrote:

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

So the consensus on the moderate left is this election is an inconvenience to Corbyn's plan to reform the Labour party so it will permanently be more left wing.

He's desperately holding out till September where they will have the chance to chance the voting weights to elect candidates, essentially ensuring there will always be a hard left candidate.

Hence his desire to change the goal posts and measure his success against Ed Milliband's performance, rather than leaving after being humiliated at the voting booths.

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

It's not some principle of where on the left Labour is, but an ideological reaction against rampant capitalism. Where capitalism isn't working, and the list is very long, you need an alternative.

The only voting booths he's stood in so far, have been majority victories, yet the right wing keep pushing the unelectable tag.

We'll see.

And when we have seen, will you accept it, or will it then be the fault of the media for portraying him unfairly?

Philip Collins in The Times this morning is worth a read. Labour wins when it runs on a theme of modernisation. Blair won three times by more than ten seats - which Labour has only done five times in 26 elections since universal suffrage.

"This manifesto is Labour marching backwards into battle. It is not a suicide note. It is a request to be allowed to go to Dignitas."

The MSM do portray him unfairly, but accept what?

What the LP did under Blair, may not be relevant to now.

rick_chasey

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

OK.

There's quite a big ideological difference between Blairism and Toryism in any form, but I sense you don't want that debate...

And is capitalism actually failing? Or is it mismanagement?

I don't mind the debate, but to what end? The LP moved to the right under Blair. His spin doctors saw the opportunity of the Americanisation of election politics and took it on 'successfully'. The LP crossed the rubicon, and discarded socialist ideologies. Particularly clause 4.

As I've said before, I canvassed for a Militant council election, and LP support on the doors did not see what has happening. Just thought that once in power, Labour would return to working class ideals.

Capitalism is a rotting corpse, that needs replacing. Once people open their eyes minds, this should be carried out.

.


I just had to google whatever clause 4 is.

It's literally 100 years old. Anyway.

If capitalism is a rotting corpse, how did it so successfully pull almost a billion people out of poverty within one and a half decades in what was previously a socialist structure?

bompington

It's easy. You just keep repeating "capitalism is a rotting corpse" to yourself and your echo chamber enough times and it will become true!

rjsterry

meursault wrote:

bompington wrote:

meursault wrote:

very low workers consciousness that won't go to the polls and vote for a party that represents them

Ah, the classic communist fallacy that "the workers" are a single lump, combined with the hubris of thinking that just because you claim to speak for "the workers", you do.

The working class contains a whole strata, I have never said they are one lump. That doesn't change my view, that working class consciousness is lagging behind the objective situation.

Which is it? Strata is the plural, stratum is the singular. Is strata even a vaguely appropriate term? We've done the whole "does Marxist theory reflect reality?" debate before and I don't recall any convincing evidence.

kingstongraham

meursault wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

So the consensus on the moderate left is this election is an inconvenience to Corbyn's plan to reform the Labour party so it will permanently be more left wing.

He's desperately holding out till September where they will have the chance to chance the voting weights to elect candidates, essentially ensuring there will always be a hard left candidate.

Hence his desire to change the goal posts and measure his success against Ed Milliband's performance, rather than leaving after being humiliated at the voting booths.

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

It's not some principle of where on the left Labour is, but an ideological reaction against rampant capitalism. Where capitalism isn't working, and the list is very long, you need an alternative.

The only voting booths he's stood in so far, have been majority victories, yet the right wing keep pushing the unelectable tag.

We'll see.

And when we have seen, will you accept it, or will it then be the fault of the media for portraying him unfairly?

Philip Collins in The Times this morning is worth a read. Labour wins when it runs on a theme of modernisation. Blair won three times by more than ten seats - which Labour has only done five times in 26 elections since universal suffrage.

"This manifesto is Labour marching backwards into battle. It is not a suicide note. It is a request to be allowed to go to Dignitas."

The MSM do portray him unfairly, but accept what?

What the LP did under Blair, may not be relevant to now.

I meant that if the party does get severely beaten, would you then accept that he is not electable?

What the LP did under Blair was run the country. I accept that may not be relevant to the current Labour party.

rick_chasey

China is an incredibly useful comparison between the advantages of 50 years of socialism vs 10 years of capitalism.

he World Bank, which tracks poverty, estimates that 1.9bn people were extremely poor in 1981. In that year, the poor accounted for 42% of the world’s population. In 2013, by contrast, only 767m people were poor. Because the world’s population has grown so much in the interim, the share of poor people in the population has fallen even faster, to just below 11%. The single biggest reason for this delightful trend is China. In 1981, almost unbelievably, 88% of Chinese (and 96% of rural Chinese) seem to have lived below the poverty line. In 2013 only 2% of Chinese were extremely poor.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economis ... explains-1

mrfpb

meursault wrote:

The LP moved to the right under Blair. His spin doctors saw the opportunity of the Americanisation of election politics and took it on 'successfully'. The LP crossed the rubicon, and discarded socialist ideologies.

You're confusing the job of "doing politics" to win an election with the substance of making real change when in government. To borrow a couple of items from the article I linked to, introducing the minimum wage, in work benefits to reduce the benefit trap that kept people unemployed, devolution of Wales and Scotland, massive increases in funding to NHS, schools and child care. I can't see any of that happening while Labour occupied the opposition benches.

As for giving up clause 4 from the Labour constitution, he also got the Irish to give up their constitutional claim to the North (as part of the NI peace process). It worked to get Labour into power, it worked to get the RoI more influence in the North. People cling to ideology as a point of principle, but ultimately you can make anything a point of principle if you are pig headed enough. If you want to make real change you need to compromise. Corbyn has never been in a position before winning the leadership where he was forced to compromise in order to acheive real change for people, that's why the PLP have no confidence in him.

meursault

Rick Chasey wrote:

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

OK.

There's quite a big ideological difference between Blairism and Toryism in any form, but I sense you don't want that debate...

And is capitalism actually failing? Or is it mismanagement?

I don't mind the debate, but to what end? The LP moved to the right under Blair. His spin doctors saw the opportunity of the Americanisation of election politics and took it on 'successfully'. The LP crossed the rubicon, and discarded socialist ideologies. Particularly clause 4.

As I've said before, I canvassed for a Militant council election, and LP support on the doors did not see what has happening. Just thought that once in power, Labour would return to working class ideals.

Capitalism is a rotting corpse, that needs replacing. Once people open their eyes minds, this should be carried out.

.


I just had to google whatever clause 4 is.

It's literally 100 years old. Anyway.

If capitalism is a rotting corpse, how did it so successfully pull almost a billion people out of poverty within one and a half decades in what was previously a socialist structure?

1995 clause 4 was changed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clause_IV

You need to read Capital to get a full understanding of why Capitalism is way out of date.

meursault

bompington wrote:

It's easy. You just keep repeating "capitalism is a rotting corpse" to yourself and your echo chamber enough times and it will become true!

It's not just me, the last philosopher also said it, see above post.

meursault

KingstonGraham wrote:

meursault wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

So the consensus on the moderate left is this election is an inconvenience to Corbyn's plan to reform the Labour party so it will permanently be more left wing.

He's desperately holding out till September where they will have the chance to chance the voting weights to elect candidates, essentially ensuring there will always be a hard left candidate.

Hence his desire to change the goal posts and measure his success against Ed Milliband's performance, rather than leaving after being humiliated at the voting booths.

The moderate left? Who are they? Blairites are full on tories.

It's not some principle of where on the left Labour is, but an ideological reaction against rampant capitalism. Where capitalism isn't working, and the list is very long, you need an alternative.

The only voting booths he's stood in so far, have been majority victories, yet the right wing keep pushing the unelectable tag.

We'll see.

And when we have seen, will you accept it, or will it then be the fault of the media for portraying him unfairly?

Philip Collins in The Times this morning is worth a read. Labour wins when it runs on a theme of modernisation. Blair won three times by more than ten seats - which Labour has only done five times in 26 elections since universal suffrage.

"This manifesto is Labour marching backwards into battle. It is not a suicide note. It is a request to be allowed to go to Dignitas."

The MSM do portray him unfairly, but accept what?

What the LP did under Blair, may not be relevant to now.

I meant that if the party does get severely beaten, would you then accept that he is not electable?

What the LP did under Blair was run the country. I accept that may not be relevant to the current Labour party.

It's not about Corbyn the personality. I do accept that working class consciousness is lagging behind the objective situation.

rick_chasey

meursault wrote:

You need to read Capital to get a full understanding of why Capitalism is way out of date.

Which one?

By Marx? Read that.

By Piketty? Read that too.

By John Lancaster? Also read that.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about the abolition of poverty in China that occured so soon after embracing capitalism.

You know - if Marx is the theory, let's see how the evidence stacks up.

meursault

mrfpb wrote:

meursault wrote:

The LP moved to the right under Blair. His spin doctors saw the opportunity of the Americanisation of election politics and took it on 'successfully'. The LP crossed the rubicon, and discarded socialist ideologies.

You're confusing the job of "doing politics" to win an election with the substance of making real change when in government. To borrow a couple of items from the article I linked to, introducing the minimum wage, in work benefits to reduce the benefit trap that kept people unemployed, devolution of Wales and Scotland, massive increases in funding to NHS, schools and child care. I can't see any of that happening while Labour occupied the opposition benches.

As for giving up clause 4 from the Labour constitution, he also got the Irish to give up their constitutional claim to the North (as part of the NI peace process). It worked to get Labour into power, it worked to get the RoI more influence in the North. People cling to ideology as a point of principle, but ultimately you can make anything a point of principle if you are pig headed enough. If you want to make real change you need to compromise. Corbyn has never been in a position before winning the leadership where he was forced to compromise in order to acheive real change for people, that's why the PLP have no confidence in him.

Nope, you can't compromise or reform capitalism. The bosses always find a way to get back their concessions. For example the NHS from 1948 to now.

meursault

Rick Chasey wrote:

meursault wrote:

You need to read Capital to get a full understanding of why Capitalism is way out of date.

Which one?

By Marx? Read that.

By Piketty? Read that too.

By John Lancaster? Also read that.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about the abolition of poverty in China that occured so soon after embracing capitalism.

You know - if Marx is the theory, let's see how the evidence stacks up.

Just the one by Marx. Really read it? What didn't you agree with?

Stevo_666

Wallace and Gromit wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Talking of music, I heard the theme tune to 'Mission Impossible' yesterday and thought that maybe Labour and the Lib Dems could adopt it as their party song

For inexplicable reasons I have "Things can only get better..." on my turbo playlist. How did that work out then?

That's on my play list for 9th June.

Stevo_666

narbs wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

So the consensus on the moderate left is this election is an inconvenience to Corbyn's plan to reform the Labour party so it will permanently be more left wing.

He's desperately holding out till September where they will have the chance to chance the voting weights to elect candidates, essentially ensuring there will always be a hard left candidate.

Hence his desire to change the goal posts and measure his success against Ed Milliband's performance, rather than leaving after being humiliated at the voting booths.

That's why the manifesto is so narrow - it's about energising the base labour members to keep them voting for him in September.

That's why he's campaiging in labour safe seats and not going near swing seats. He's not interested in the GE.

Very hard to disagree with any of this - particularly this last sentence. I've heard plenty of whispers (which I suspect will become louder) that candidates, including sitting MPs, in marginals are getting no support from the leadership. No telephone canvassing, no resources, certainly no visits.

This makes sense in terms of what he is trying to achieve. I have no issue with it at all.

tangled_metal

The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.[3]

New clause IV.

mrfpb

meursault wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

meursault wrote:

The LP moved to the right under Blair. His spin doctors saw the opportunity of the Americanisation of election politics and took it on 'successfully'. The LP crossed the rubicon, and discarded socialist ideologies.

You're confusing the job of "doing politics" to win an election with the substance of making real change when in government. To borrow a couple of items from the article I linked to, introducing the minimum wage, in work benefits to reduce the benefit trap that kept people unemployed, devolution of Wales and Scotland, massive increases in funding to NHS, schools and child care. I can't see any of that happening while Labour occupied the opposition benches.

As for giving up clause 4 from the Labour constitution, he also got the Irish to give up their constitutional claim to the North (as part of the NI peace process). It worked to get Labour into power, it worked to get the RoI more influence in the North. People cling to ideology as a point of principle, but ultimately you can make anything a point of principle if you are pig headed enough. If you want to make real change you need to compromise. Corbyn has never been in a position before winning the leadership where he was forced to compromise in order to acheive real change for people, that's why the PLP have no confidence in him.

Nope, you can't compromise or reform capitalism. The bosses always find a way to get back their concessions. For example the NHS from 1948 to now.

And yet I somehow cling to my right wing belief that the NHS of 2017 is much better than the Poor Law provision of 1601 - 1948.

rick_chasey

meursault wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

meursault wrote:

You need to read Capital to get a full understanding of why Capitalism is way out of date.

Which one?

By Marx? Read that.

By Piketty? Read that too.

By John Lancaster? Also read that.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about the abolition of poverty in China that occured so soon after embracing capitalism.

You know - if Marx is the theory, let's see how the evidence stacks up.

Just the one by Marx. Really read it? What didn't you agree with?

It was less reading it to see if i agreed with it or not.

I was seriously considering doing a PhD in Soviet History so I figured I'd bone up on some of the theoretical underpinnings whilst i was deciding. It was more a question of trying to get under the skin and the internal logic of Soviets, and were it was derived from.

I see a number of basic contradictions in the internal logic, that to be honest, I can't be bothered to articulate, since it requires articulating the original logic first.

However, more broadly, I have a few criticisms.

1) the economist system on which it's all based on itself relies on the labour theory of value; something I disagree with. I see no evidence for it, against, say, marginalist theory, for which I see evidence for every day. The value of something is whatever value people want to put on it, regardless of the labour. In a socialist society, as we have seen, there is no effective price discovery mechanism, and so resources are marshalled in a very inefficient way.

2) With that, we have tonnes of evidence to confirm a lack of incentives to be productive in the socalist model. Humans are not by nature, egalitarian, despite everyone's best efforts, and so to create a system that is genuinely egalitarian by outcome (as opposed to opportunity) requires dictatorship. I have seen no genuine socialist model that does not involve excessive coercion of independent economic and political thought.

3) class is not homogeneous & all that that entails. Marx is not convincing on explaining the Asiatic model.

I'm ultimately of the view that in its modern form it acts like a pseudoscience, with a lot of ad hoc revisionism in light of contrary evidence to the original thesis.

But you still haven't answered my question about china. Why did China still have 88% of its population living in poverty after 30 odd years of socialism, and yet after embracing a market/capitalist based economic model, after the same length of time, virtually none of its population live in poverty?

kingstongraham

meursault wrote:

It's not about Corbyn the personality. I do accept that working class consciousness is lagging behind the objective situation.

Does that mean people don't agree with you?

bompington

meursault wrote:

You need to read Capital to get a full understanding of why Capitalism is way out of date.

My irony meter just turned itself inside out and expired.

We need to read a 150-year old book, consisting of incorrect conclusions drawn from dodgy theories and biased observation, to show us how out of date the current economic model is, the one with far and away the greatest success in increasing prosperity and freedom?

Right.

kingstongraham

I did think you meant Piketty.